Dear editor,
Concerning Dennis Flannigan’s earnest kick at the oil can (“Oil production in need of refinement,” May 25), surely the advancement of fossil fuels have no place in the face of global warming that is the most pressing crisis of our times, and which will become unstoppable under tarsands expansion and export. Scientists true to their calling have spoken; we have already breached 400 parts per million of CO2 pollution for the first time in some three million years. We are already experiencing the consequences of our fossil fuel fixation in the increasing incidents of heat, drought, floods, fires, and violent weather extremes around the world.
As well, ocean acidification due to CO2 pollution is increasing to the point of die-off of oysters, and worldwide, coral reefs that are nurseries to juvenile fish are dying also. So are the phytoplankton of the oceans dying from acidification, and these are estimated to provide 40 per cent of the world’s oxygen.
We need to expand fossil fuels and LNG for export like a hole in the head. The production of LNG is no more safe for life than the tarsands, with poisoning of groundwater and farmland legion, and B.C.’s focus on frantic fracking for export when the whole world is doing the same thing makes neither social, fiscal, nor environmental sense.
Nationally, we should skip dangerous tanker shipment and export, corrupting other nations’ will to change. Scientists conclude the tarsands should remain in the ground, with current supplies kept for domestic use while we seek alternative energy wanting only recognition to succeed. We know that the writing is on the wall, and that we have to change from production/consumption-driven economies to more sane ways to live. Ways that do not sacrifice nature’s ability to foster life on Earth, nor persecute the innocent among us.
We can change. We have to, just as the lowly caterpillar reconstructs itself within its star-spangled chrysalis to emerge a being winged and free. The happiness that attends working with nature instead of against her attests to this primal need, and never more than today.
Mary Russell
Port Hardy